


Anagnorisis

by Vercastriel



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence - Red Wedding, Conspiracy Theories, Gen, Satire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:39:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8660197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vercastriel/pseuds/Vercastriel
Summary: Two collaborating artists reflect on a flawless performance. But the show isn’t over just yet.





	

Talisa Maegyr (which wasn’t her real name) drank deeply from her cup of Lord Frey’s best wine. The wine he’d served at the feast hadn’t, of course, been fit to serve as pig-swill. She had to admire the man’s pettiness.

  
Other than the two of them, the only occupants of the room were a few serving girls, determinedly scrubbing the floor clean. She was usually gone by this point. It was funny, she thought. No matter what happens, the servants still have to clean up the blood and shit.

  
The man of the hour was ogling one of them, having apparently gotten over the untimely death of his young wife the previous day.

“D’you know what that head-kicked whoreson said, as my girls were taking him to his bedding chamber? Do you?” She was apparently being addressed.

“No.” she said. “I was at my husband’s side, my lord. Where else would I be?”

She was, admittedly, bunging it on a bit, but this still earned her a laugh.

“He said, “Careful now ladies, once you set that monster free there’s no caging him”! I almost told the crossbowmen to put a quarrel through his cock right then and there!”  
“Your bowmen are skilled, Lord Frey, but I doubt that even they could pierce so small a target.”

  
He began to laugh uproariously, beating his cup on the armrest of his oaken throne. Really now. This part of the world was apparently beginning to rub off on her. It was an inexpressibly vulgar place.  
“The Young Wolf. How fucking stupid was that man? Did he never wonder why he started losing the war right when you were invited into his councils? Never wonder who all those letters were being sent to?”  
“There was a time,” she intoned with conspiratorial solemnity, “that he asked who I was writing to.”  
“What did you say?” said Walder, his greedily childish expression ill-suiting his ninety-one year old face.  
“I said I was writing a letter to Lord Tywin of Casterly Rock. A noble lady must never lie to her husband, my lord.”

  
She was laying it on with a trowel at this point, but the Lord of The Crossing ate it up all the same. Wheezing and sputtering, he righted himself with some difficulty, and yelled for more wine. A plump serving girl that might have been one of his daughters obliged, and they refilled their cups.  
“Nothing about you made a rabbit’s squirt of sense. A wandering nurse, without guards? You’d have had your throat slit and your cunny reamed in half a second.”  
“Not if the enemy knew who I was, my Lord. But of course, that is quite impossible.”  
Lord Walder laughed again. That appeared to be his favourite activity. “A noblewoman from Volantis. Volantis! When you’re clearly from Myr or somesuch place. Had he never read a fucking book?”  
“Do not forget, my lord, how I was so outraged by slavery I decided to become an itinerant battlefield medic on another continent. That was possibly my favourite part.”  
Walder laughed, and spat on the floor. The servants cleaned it up without missing a beat. “How did he swallow it?”  
“The funny thing, my lord, is that he wasn’t supposed to.”  
“Eh?” said Walder. “How’s that then?”

  
“Men and women of my profession often have two cover stories, one believable, one outlandish. Usually, the target sees through the latter immediately. Generally one fashions a sympathetic motive for the deception. Odd as it may sound, it usually makes them trust you more. I had this whole story worked out about how I was a young noblewoman in hiding. But nobody questioned the presence of a Volantene heiress in the court of the King in the North. I thought maybe his mother would have sniffed it out, but no. Apparently he didn’t just get his brains from his father.”  
Walder laughed again. “But my lady,” he said, “you’re forgetting the best part. The really funny part.”  
“What is that, my lord?” she asked innocently.  
“The really funny part,” said Walder, “is that Lord Tywin’s just sent me a raven telling me to clean up the loose end.”

  
Talisa (refer to previous disclaimer) had just enough time to adopt an expression of surprise, before several arrows pierced her chest. She slid unceremoniously off her chair.  
Oh, she thought, as blood pooled on the floor for the second time that day. So this is how I’m going to die. Not quite how I pictured it, but, then again, at least that wrinkled old trout didn’t get me.  
She had considered, briefly, letting Lord Walder know that she’d known he would do this.  
Truly, she would never manage a deception so glorious again. The expression on that charming fool’s face when she’d shanked him repeatedly in the gut marked the zenith of her life and career. Such heights were never to be seen again. Whyever would she wish to live, knowing her best work was behind her?

  
Perhaps allowing the old man this satisfaction was her final (and only) generous act.

  
Talisa Maegyr (refer to previous disclaimer) bled to death on the floor of the Twins, as did, unbeknownst to her, her embryo, the moon tea she had studiously drank having failed her at last. The servants hauled her body away, and mopped up the blood.


End file.
